This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Queen’s Park had just announced it would be cutting $150 million in grants to Toronto, over three years. Naturally, Ford wants to keep the grants. He has asked for a meeting with Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa next week. Ford’s comments, a curious attack, are unhelpful.

Everyone knows the province is running up deficits and looking to reduce costs. Meanwhile, everyone knows Toronto’s fiscal crisis has long passed — though fewer realize that provincial grants and assistance are largely responsible for the correction.

Article Continued Below

To be direct, the Mike Harris government downloaded hundreds of millions of dollars on Toronto, sending the city into a fiscal nightmare. The Dalton McGuinty government uploaded the costs, added more assistance, gave the city new taxing powers and left Toronto sitting pretty.

That happened due to the advocacy from mayors Mel Lastman and David Miller — advocacy opposed by Rob Ford as a city councillor. Why? Because, he said, “Toronto has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.”

Toronto was in such a good position the day Miller left that Rob Ford rode into office and immediately abolished the first of the new taxes, vehicle registration tax and about $60 million in revenue. And now Ford is insisting on ending the land transfer tax, which contributes more than $300 million a year to city coffers. At the very least, he says, he wants 10 per cent gone in 2014.

So, consider the optics.

While Ontario has deficits in the billions of dollars, Toronto racks up annual surpluses — spiking to nearly $400 million under Miller and nearly $300 million under Ford.

While Ontario struggles to find tax revenues to pay for services, Mayor Ford is busy ending tax sources and plotting to flush away others such as the land transfer tax.

Ford was unmindful of the optics of demanding the province pick up costs the city clearly can afford. Worse, he blasted the Ontario government he hopes to influence next week. “They are squandering billions up there. They have a spending problem, not a revenue problem.”

Article Continued Below

Ouch. That line again.

And, as if to give the Kathleen Wynne government a lesson in fiscal management, the mayor said that if he is forced to eat the $150 million, starting with $50 million in the 2014 budget, he still won’t raise taxes any higher. He will cut programs and people will have to suffer. And they can blame Queen’s Park.

Well, that’s a unique negotiating strategy, and perfectly consistent with a mayor who has practised his own brand of how to win friends and influence people.

As usual, political posturing blurs truth in these matters.

Fact: The province has given the city some $400 million a year in permanent relief to social services costs. By some accounting it’s a lot more than that, but city staff was using that figure Friday.

Fact: In addition to that, hundreds of millions more have flowed to Toronto during this positive period of city-provincial relationships.

Fact: The city had an agreement that the $150 million would continue till 2018 at least.

Fact: Queen’s Park mandarins believe the city no longer needs the $150 million because the social services costs that were supposed to be covered in the original pooling fund have been uploaded. What may be in dispute is this: The $150 million was calculated, in part, as compensation for Toronto’s unique housing costs, which still exist. The bureaucrats who conceived of this arrangement have moved on to other jobs, so the city has to re-make the case. There may be room for negotiation here.

Fact: The city stands to gain something else in exchange, though not as much as the province thinks. Since 2005, Toronto has stopped repaying a $200 million loan it received from the province at amalgamation in 1998. The outstanding balance is $170 million. Minister Sousa has written off the loan, thinking the city now has access to $170 million. But the city has only $40 million set aside.

More from The Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com